Top Stories
AP: "The U.S. will not 'walk away' from the challenge of Iran's stepped-up arming of Iraqi insurgents who are targeting and killing American troops, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday. 'We're very concerned about Iran and the weapons they're providing to extremists in Iraq,' he told a small group of soldiers on his first visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief. 'We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue to happen' he said. 'This is not something we're going to walk away from. It's something we're going to take on head on.' Panetta said Iraq must more aggressively go after the Shiite militias that are using what he called Iranian-supplied weapons." http://t.uani.com/nsxLuU
WashPost: "On June 30, the Danish shipping giant Maersk startled Iran's trade officials by abruptly pulling out of the country's three largest ports. Company officials said little about the decision, but the timing was striking: A week earlier, the Obama administration had declared the ports' operator to be an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group linked to terrorism and weapons trafficking. Other shipping companies followed suit, and soon Iran was scrambling to find alternative ways to import food and other critical supplies. Now Iranian officials are warning of economic pain in the months ahead - precisely the effect that U.S. officials were hoping for. After two years of failed efforts to entice Iran with diplomatic carrots, the Obama administration is quietly toasting successes at using economic sticks. A series of U.S. and international sanctions imposed over the past year have slowly undermined Iran's ability to conduct trade by targeting the country's access to international banking, insurers and transportation companies. Like Maersk, some firms voluntarily cut ties with Iranian companies that U.S. officials say are front operations for the Revolutionary Guard." http://t.uani.com/qk497b
AP: "On a cold March morning last year, an Iranian diplomat was flown home nearly 15 months after being kidnapped by gunmen in an ambush on the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass. Iran hailed the release as a victory for its intelligence agents, who they claimed staged a rescue mission into the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Western officials and others saw it differently: A turning point in Iran's dealings with al-Qaeda. Negotiations to free the captive diplomat are believed to have reached high-level al-Qaeda figures, Western officials say. In return for its help, al-Qaeda demanded better conditions for dozens of people close to Osama bin Laden who have been held under tight security in Iran, including some of the terror chief's children and the network's most senior military strategist Saif al-Adel. The apparent result has been greater freedom of movement for al-Adel, who has long been a top al-Qaeda figure and only grew in importance after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in May... That could mark a significant shift in the long hazy relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda. Since 2001, Iran has appeared a somewhat reluctant host for senior al-Qaeda operatives who fled there after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, keeping them under tight restrictions. Now, though Iran remains on the edge of al-Qaeda's orbit, it seems to be a more comfortable haven for those operatives." http://t.uani.com/pIOPEf
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Huge blasts in a seized Iranian arms cache at a Greek Cypriot naval base in southern Cyprus killed at least 12 people on Monday, triggering power and water outages at the height of the summer. In what Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides called a 'tragedy of Biblical dimensions' for the small Mediterranean island, the explosions devastated the adjacent Vassiliko power station. The plant accounts for almost 60 percent of supply. The blasts also caused massive damage to homes in the nearby village of Mari, forcing the evacuation of its population of 150 people, its mukhtar or headman, Nikos Asprou, told AFP." http://t.uani.com/qXaAB4
NYT: "Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that weapons supplied by Iran had become a 'tremendous concern' for the United States in recent weeks in Iraq, where more American troops died in June in combat-related episodes than in any month since June 2008. 'We're seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they've really hurt us,' Mr. Panetta said before arriving here on an unannounced trip, his first to the Iraqi capital as defense secretary. Mr. Panetta is the third top American official to raise an alarm about Iranian influence in Iraq in recent days. The American ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, said last week that the United States had 'forensic' evidence that weapons and weapons parts from Iran were being used by Shiite militias against American troops. His remarks were echoed two days later in Washington by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mr. Panetta did not elaborate on what the forensic evidence entailed. Mr. Panetta's comments, made a day before he is to meet with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, were aimed at urging the Iraqi military to take stronger action against Shiite militias and to see Iran as the Obama administration does - not just as a threat to American troops, but as a potential cancer in the country." http://t.uani.com/pcJWCd
AP: "A senior Revolutionary Guard commander threatened Saturday that U.S. aircraft carriers would be targeted if Iran came under attack amid a standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear program. Iran has often warned of major retaliation if they faced a military strike from Israel or the West, but the latest comments appear tailored to emphasize the expanding range of Iranian missiles following 10 days of war games. The exercises included unveiling underground missile silos that Iran says is capable of multiple launches. 'Aircraft carriers ... are moving targets. If the enemy threatens us, we will target them,' said Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guard's aerospace force, in comments broadcast on state TV." http://t.uani.com/pqLYCl
Reuters: "Iran said on Saturday it test-fired two long-range missiles into the Indian Ocean earlier this year, the first time it has fired missiles into that sea, according to state television. 'In the month of Bahman (Jan 21-Feb 19) two missiles with a range of 1,900 km (1,180 miles) were fired from Semnan province (in northern Iran) into the mouth of the Indian Ocean,' Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace division, told a news conference some of which was shown on television." http://t.uani.com/nxYDFR
Human Rights
Fox News: "Iran has reportedly executed at least 183 people during the first six months of 2011, with reports of an additional 130 executions that have gone unacknowledged. Those figures, according to Amnesty International statistics, put Iran on course for a record year for capital punishment. In 2010, 253 people were executed, including 170 people for drug offenses. Up to 300 additional people are also believed to have been killed. According to Iran Human Rights, an independent watchdog, the actual number is even higher." http://t.uani.com/pM8kHS
Domestic Politics
FT: "In May, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced the country's education system as 'imported' from the west and urged that it become more 'Iranian and Islamic'. Such denunciations by senior officials in the Islamic republic are not new. Hamid-Reza Hajibabaei, the education minister, has repeatedly called for a 'fundamental change' in Iran's schools based on Islamic values. The Iranian authorities launched about 10,000 Quran schools last year, according to the education ministry, where 1.5m students take lessons after school. The ministry plans to increase the number to 50,000 institutions. But, more than 30 years after the Islamic regime imposed strict segregation of boys and girls and expanded the time devoted to religious teaching, some in the political establishment are beginning to recognise that the country's education system is failing." http://t.uani.com/nEnfqV
AP: "Iran's political power struggles have brought no shortage of cutthroat intrigue with careers ruined, government officials arrested and even accusations of black magic. And now this - firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the voice of liberal dissent. That's the latest twist in the showdown between Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling clerics. Ahmadinejad - reviled by the opposition as a figurehead of hard-line rule - is now temporarily in the reformists' corner by opposing plans to segregate male and female students at Iranian universities. 'It is necessary to swiftly prevent these backward, shallow-minded actions,' Ahmadinejad wrote in an order earlier this week addressed to members of his Cabinet. It also nudged the political dramas further into territory that's surprising even by Iran's roughneck standards, where potshots and bitter quarrels are common fare in parliament and elsewhere. This time, the battle is Ahmadinejad versus the theocracy that once backed him." http://t.uani.com/qtdunY
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Syria's problems can be solved within 'the family', Iran's foreign minister said during talks late Sunday with his Turkish counterpart, Fars news agency reported. 'Iran, Syria and Turkey are members of a family and if one faces a problem the family as whole should solve it,' Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said during a joint press conference with Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu. The two ministers met hours after Syria opened a 'national dialogue' it hailed as a step towards multi-party democracy after five decades of Baath party rule, although an opposition boycott undermined its credibility. 'Syria is a dear friend and brother of Turkey and has close relations with Iran...,' Davutoglu told reporters. The two minister had also discussed other issues in the region, he added." http://t.uani.com/ntkk0x
Reuters: "Iran's caretaker oil minister said on Saturday that OPEC was opposed to any increase in output ceilings in the absence of 'well-studied justifications'. 'Iran's policy as head of OPEC is to maintain the production ceiling of this organisation,' Mohammad Aliabadi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency. 'It is an issue which a majority of OPEC members agree with.' Iran holds the rotating OPEC presidency. Iran was a leading opponent of Saudi Arabia's U.S.-backed push for oil exporter group OPEC to agree to a coordinated increase in production at its last meeting on June 8." http://t.uani.com/mR93Uv
AFP: "Dozens of Iraqi farmers on Sunday blocked a border crossing with Iran in protest at its diversion of a river which helps to irrigate one of their country's main agricultural regions. The protesters blocked the entry of nine busloads of Iranian pilgrims from the border post of Munzuria, 200 kilometres (125 miles) east of Baghdad, an AFP journalist said. 'The protesters prevented 360 pilgrims from entering Iraq and distributed leaflets stating that the drying of the Al-Wind river is a mortal blow to the environment,' said Mohammed Othman, major of the nearby town of Khanaqin." http://t.uani.com/rsX4vb
Opinion & Analysis
William Hague in The Guardian: "On 8 June, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, announced plans to triple Iran's capacity to produce 20% enriched uranium, transferring enrichment from Natanz to the Fordo plant. Inside Iran this announcement by a discredited regime drew little comment and was quickly overshadowed by the domestic political theatre of the latest high-profile tussles between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it was an important statement because it makes even clearer the fact that Iran's programme is not designed for purely peaceful purposes. Iran has one civilian nuclear power station and is seeking to build more. All of these power stations need uranium enriched to about 3.5% for fuel. So plans to enrich any further rightly prompt questions. Uranium enriched to up to 20% does have some civilian uses. But not in the civilian nuclear power stations that Iran claims to desire. Predominantly it is used as fuel for research reactors, producing among other things isotopes for medical use. These are very efficient: one research reactor in Belgium is capable of producing almost all the medical isotopes needed across the whole of western Europe. Iran has one research reactor. The plans announced by Davani would provide more than four times its annual fuel requirements. Yet this reactor is already capable of producing enough radioisotopes for up to 1m medical investigations per year - already comparable to the UK and much more than Iran needs. The plan would also require diverting at least half of Iran's current annual output of 3.5% enriched uranium, and so deny it to Iran's nuclear power stations. If Iran is serious about developing civil nuclear energy, why divert limited materials and resources away from the civil energy programme in this way, while spurning offers of technological assistance for Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy from the outside world, including the E3+3 countries of the UK, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US? Yet there is one clear purpose for this enriched uranium. Enrichment from natural uranium to 20% is the most time consuming and resource-intensive step in making the highly enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon. And when enough 20% enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qom, it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons grade material. There would remain technical challenges to actually producing a bomb, but Iran would be a significant step closer... This latest revelation demonstrates the urgency of increasing pressure. The UK is prepared to take action: I have already agreed a further 100 designations to add to EU sanctions in May, and last week announced additional travel bans against known proliferators. Iran may hope that the unprecedented changes of the Arab spring will distract the world from its nuclear programme. We are determined that it shall not." http://t.uani.com/rnCDNK
Elliot Abrams in CNN: "There must be very few times in American history when a foreign government is accused of killing American troops, and absolutely nothing is done about it. Every school kid used to learn lines like 'Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead,' or 'Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.' The War of 1812 was fought in large part due to the 'impressment' of American sailors by the British, a similar example of denial of freedom that fell far short of actually killing American sailors. So what are we to make of the following statements by America's senior military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen? ... Mullen made these comments in the context of discussing the American troop presence in Iraq, and went on to say that any agreement to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year 'has to be done in conjunction with control of Iran in that regard.' So Iran's killing of American troops is a problem because it complicates leaving some forces in Iraq? What is one to make of it when our senior commander does not seem outraged by this Iranian conduct and does not demand that we put a stop to it? Our forces are not killing Iranians, but Iran has been killing Americans-in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also through involvement in terrorist attacks such as the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996-for decades, and it has paid no price. This is the probable explanation why continuing American promises, or threats if you like, that 'it is unacceptable for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons' don't appear to rattle Tehran. What credibility can we possibly have when they know we know that Iran has been killing American soldiers year after year without any significant American response. It isn't just Iran, either: the Assad regime in Syria became the transit point for every jihadi wanting to travel to Iraq to kill Americans (and large numbers of Iraqis). From all around the globe they came-Pakistan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, you name it-to Damascus International Airport, thence to be shepherded into Iraq with the full cooperation and coordination of the Government of Syria. The American military response: none. This was especially galling, for whatever dangers may have existed in threatening Iran and then having to carry through on those threats if Iran did not cease acting to kill American soldiers, they were absent in the case of a weak country like Syria. A few object lessons would have persuaded the Assad regime to desist from its actions. Soon we will have a new Secretary of Defense and a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and one can only hope that we will also have a new policy: that neither Iran nor any other government can kill Americans with impunity. The least we owe servicemen and women who risk their lives for our country is the certainty that when we know a foreign government is trying to kill them, we will act to stop it. If we adopted such a policy, we would never again have to hear a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs reveal such a set of facts and suggest as an American response......well, nothing." http://t.uani.com/pGgM9v
Omid Djalili in The Guardian: "Back in the mid-90s in my show I'm A Short Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son, I touched on cultural clashes that shaped my personality as an Iranian immigrant in Britain. Authenticity is paramount for a comedian, and as I prepare to tour a new standup show I'm getting braver: this time, I will be exploring what it is like to be an Iranian born into a Bahá'í family. The plight of the Bahá'í community in Iran has served as a backdrop to my life growing up in London, particularly since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Bahá'ís follow teachings that include the oneness of humanity and the unity of religion. This worldwide community - Bahá'ís of almost all backgrounds live in 188 countries - is striving to contribute to the betterment of the world through an educational process that seeks to raise capacities within populations to take charge of their spiritual, social and intellectual development, thus bringing positive change to their communities. Iran, however, has not looked kindly on the Bahá'ís. There are currently about 300,000 Bahá'ís in Iran (the country's largest religious minority) and the community has suffered brutal repression since its inception in 1844. After the revolution of 1979 this became a state-sanctioned campaign of persecution, and there have been hundreds of executions and arrests. In the mid-80s, at university in Northern Ireland, I experienced the ripples of what was happening in Iran in the unlikely setting of a five-a-side football team called 'The Persian Empire', a team of Iranians guys bonding over our heritage and a love of football. I was their star player (in the days when I was four stone lighter). After casually revealing my Bahá'í identity to my team I was dropped. I was shocked that the tentacles of oppression and prejudice had reached as far as Northern Ireland. Nowadays, the climate feels different. In February 2009 a group of Iranian intellectuals, writers, activists and artists signed an open letter to the Bahá'ís stating their regret concerning the Iranian government's treatment of its Bahá'í minority. They made an open apology for their silence during Iran's long-running persecutions: 'a century and a half of oppression and silence is enough'. This letter was welcomed by the Bahá'ís, who have always made it clear they are humanitarians, not political activists, working towards social transformation for all at a grassroots level, not concerned with overthrowing governments." http://t.uani.com/njzJvU
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